Fun Run

Oh my, am I glad that this Fun Run is over!  As I've worked on PTA this year, we've planned all year for our year-end fundraiser.  This year we decided to do a Fun Run.  We debated about many different kinds of runs...we originally wanted a Saturday morning 5K for the whole family to run together, but the logistics of that are pretty tricky (blocking off roads, getting permits from the city, police to direct traffic, etc.) plus we weren't sure how many families would come because Saturday mornings are so busy.  We talked about a week night too, but again, families have so many other activities to do and I was just so worried about how much money we would make.  (I never realized that most of my PTA stress this year would have to do with money!  It never even crossed my mind that I would worry about it so much.  We started off the year with a pretty tight budget--less than $10,000--and we always plan to give back about $10,000 to the school for field trips and class parties, not to mention the money it takes to run our activities throughout the year.  So I have been stressed all year.)

Anyway, in January we changed our minds to do this type of fundraiser where ALL kids get to run, during school hours.  The students were encouraged to get pledges and donations for how many laps they could run.  So from January to May, my worrying changed to..."what if the weather is crappy on the day of the run??  What if parents and teachers don't like this?  What if the students only manage to run a few laps and then complain the whole time?"  I lost so much sleep over this thing, because it hadn't ever been done at our school before.  The unknown is stressful!

We had an awesome fundraising committee and everything came together very well.  Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate fully.  We had to run inside for our first race (out of five), then it looked nice so we moved everything outside for our next three races, and then the weather turned bad again so we had to move back inside.  That was a pain!  The track area inside was much smaller too, so it was nearly impossible to track laps inside.  Our goal was 35 laps and most of the inside kids said they ran 70 or more!  Outside the kids got 35 and some wanted to keep going and got around 50!  It was awesome!

The parents were so patient and supportive as we moved in and out, and overall I think the kids had a blast!  Even the 6th graders who were "too cool" to get excited about the run ended up loving it and running extra laps.

So I plan to do it again next year!  (I am President for just one more year.)  I'm moving it to October so the weather will hopefully be nicer and more predictable, and also so that I won't have to stress about money all year! :)  I think we got our learning curve figured out so next year it should be pretty easy.  (Fingers crossed...)

Tess's grade was first and they ran inside; you can see her back, in the green shirt.

Miles's grade got to run outside; he's in the blue shirt with orange shorts.